


someone i loved more than i ever thought

by mochibbh



Category: NCT (Band), WayV (Band)
Genre: Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Post-Break Up, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:20:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25463128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mochibbh/pseuds/mochibbh
Summary: Kunhang purses his lips and scoots closer to Ten. “You thought he was it,” he reminds Ten, closing his hand over Ten’s clenched one. “You thought he’d be the last.”There’s a lump in Ten’s throat now, and he painfully tries to will it away. “I never thought that.”🎨🎨🎨Ten is left to pick himself off of the ground.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten
Comments: 24
Kudos: 59





	someone i loved more than i ever thought

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this all in one go lol. much shorter and diff than my other fics. i wanted to try writing a breakup fic, and this is what happened. i hope u enjoy!
> 
> 🎨🎨🎨
> 
> title from yonezu kenshi's song [Lemon.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX_ViT4Ra7k)
> 
>   
> _"自分が思うより_  
>  _恋をしていたあなたに"_  
> 

When Ten drunkenly steps through the front door, it’s to a dark apartment, save for the light in his bedroom he forgot to turn off before he left.

The bright light is a stark contrast to the darkness of 4 AM, so Ten stumbles towards the room, his eyes squinting against the brightness, and waves his hand around until it hits the switch and the room is flooded with the same darkness as the rest of the apartment. He makes a move to shake his coat off before remembering he didn’t even wear one out in the first place and falls face first into his unmade bed. His mouth tastes like cheap whiskey and some stranger’s cologne, something that’s become unfamiliar to him in the past years.

He reaches out his arm blindly to his right, grappling with the sheets. “Thirsty,” he mumbles. His voice is hoarse. “Doyoung, ‘m thirsty,” Ten repeats, swinging his arm up and down to find his boyfriend. Doyoung doesn’t respond, and Ten is tired of moving his arm around to try to find him, so he finally lifts his head to glare at Doyoung.

Doyoung isn’t there, and it’s like a bucket of ice water is dumped onto Ten’s head. His arm freezes and he grips the bedsheets until his knuckles turn white from the pressure, and he stares at the empty space in a bed that used to feel too small. It feels entirely too big now, and Ten is drowning in it.

The apartment is dark and Ten is alone. 

The first thing Ten does when he wakes up the next day is run to the bathroom and dry heave over the toilet.

Nothing comes up, unsurprisingly, since his only meals yesterday were six shots of tequila and four whiskey sours. When his stomach no longer feels like it’s turning inside out, he stands on shaky legs and winces as he splashes cold water in his face. There’s a face in the mirror that Ten hasn’t seen in a long time.

It’s dark and lonely and Ten hates it.

There’s plenty of food in the fridge when Ten opens it because Doyoung stocked it full of his favorite things before he left. His stomach lurches at the sight, so he shuts the fridge and grabs his wallet and his keys, though he doesn’t bother to lock his door on the way out.

The coffee shop is bustling with people. Ten checks his phone and realizes it’s noon. He wishes he’d checked earlier so he could avoid the lines and the sound of chattering, all of it making his head pound harder than when he woke up. He’s wearing a black mask on the bottom half of his face, but it’s not enough, and he longs for a hood to put over his head to hide him from the sounds, from everyone else.

“Usual, please,” he croaks out when he’s at the front of the line. He has the exact amount of change ready for the cashier to take.

The cashier punches in Ten’s order and takes the money, finally looking up at Ten’s face. “Whoa,” Donghyuck says, not bothering to hide his shock. He’s probably disgusted at Ten’s appearance. Ten doesn’t blame him. “You okay man?” He puts the money in the register and tosses the receipt once it’s finished printing.

“Yes,” Ten answers, because he’s still breathing even if each breath constricts his chest like a vice and everywhere he looks he only sees Doyoung, Doyoung, Doyoung.

He puts a few bills in the tip jar and wanders towards the pickup counter, where he can see Johnny preparing everyone’s drinks. He and Doyoung used to come here and ogle Johnny over the counter, even after they started dating. Ten wonders if Johnny will be Doyoung’s next. He wonders if he can get to Johnny first, though he doesn’t really want to.

Johnny sets two drinks on the counter. “Ten,” he calls, pushing the drinks forward, and all Ten does is stare at the cup with _“Doyoung”_ scrawled on it. He doesn’t know how long he stands there, staring at the drink while others mill about, but eventually Johnny realizes he hasn’t taken the drinks yet. One look at Ten has him taking Doyoung’s drink back and replacing it with a hot croissant instead. The action finally pulls Ten’s eyes up to Johnny, and Johnny smiles gently. “I’ve been there,” Johnny says under all the noise. Ten blinks numbly. “If you ever need company, you can drop by whenever you want.” Johnny smiles again then goes back to preparing drinks for waiting customers.

Ten slowly takes his drink and the pastry, walking out of the coffee shop and back to his apartment. He thinks back on the interaction; Johnny, sweet and caring, non-intrusive, kind, attractive. He’s the perfect man in a package, wrapped in a pretty bow.

Ten doesn’t care.

He drinks half of his coffee and nibbles on his croissant and falls asleep on the couch that he and Doyoung picked together.

He wakes up at 10 PM to his phone vibrating in his back pocket.

There are four missed calls and at least a dozen texts that are still coming in from different people.

**_Yuta  
_ ** _Doyoung is here and he’s a fucking mess, what did you do this time  
Ten answer me, Taeyong is freaked out _

**_Missed call: Yuta  
Missed call: Yuta_ **

**_Yuta  
_ ** _call me back_

**_Missed call: Winwin  
Missed call: Hendery_ **

**_hendery  
_ ** _i’m coming over, leave your door unlocked_

Ten runs his hand over his face and tosses his phone somewhere out of his reach. His coffee’s long since gone cold, so he pours it into a mug, one that Doyoung _didn’t_ buy for him, and heats it up in the microwave.

It beeps when it’s finished, and he pulls it out at the same time his front door opens and Kunhang comes in. He brings with him the scent of Thai food and a voice too loud for Ten’s headache.

“Tomorrow’s Monday, just so you know,” Kunhang says, setting food on the coffee table and scrolling through Netflix. “Are you going to work?”

“What else am I gonna do, get fired?” Ten says back, his throat rough. “Doyoung is coming back tomorrow while I’m at work to pick up his stuff, it’s only fair I’m not in the apartment while he does it.” He walks over to the living room to join Kunhang, and his stomach grumbles loudly at the food. He frowns at the noise and plops himself down on the floor with his coffee.

Kunhang snatches the drink out of his hands and walks to the kitchen. “No coffee at night, you know that,” he admonishes. He comes back with a can of sparkling water instead.

“What are you, Doyoung?” Ten snaps. He takes the can anyways and picks a movie on Netflix he and Kunhang have seen a hundred times. They eat silently while the movie plays, Ten’s bites small and Kunhang wolfing down twice as much as him.

“Yuta tried calling me earlier,” Ten blurts out ten minutes into the movie.

Kunhang keeps eating. “And?”

Ten swallows and sets his spoon down. “He texted and said Doyoung wasn’t doing well.” His stomach churns, and he swallows again.

“What did you say back?”

“Nothing.” Ten leans back against the couch, words tumbling out of his mouth. “I mean, it’s kind of unfair, isn’t it? Doyoung is the one who walked out on me.” _On us._ “What’s he got to be fucked up over?”

That has Kunhang raising a dubious eyebrow. “That’s bullshit and you know it.” He puts his own utensils onto the table and places his chin in his palm. “Besides, you said it was mutual.”

Ten barks out a laugh. “Maybe I changed my mind after cooling down. You know, like I always do. But he left.” The sound of the door clicking shut behind Doyoung echoes in Ten’s memory.

“What was his final straw?”

“I don’t know.” Maybe it was the way Ten always forgot to turn off all of the lights before he left the apartment, or the way he never wore a jacket out despite Doyoung reminding him to every day, or the way Ten would forget to eat meals even if Doyoung had cooked them for him. Maybe Ten was taking too long to grow up and Doyoung had finally become tired of it. “I think he ran out patience for me. Three years is a long time to put up with me, you know. He gets my respect for sticking around the longest, at least. Back to square one for me.” He takes a sip of his sparkling water and longs for the coffee that Kunhang already dumped down the drain.

Kunhang purses his lips and scoots closer to Ten. “You thought he was it,” he reminds Ten, closing his hand over Ten’s clenched one. “You thought he’d be the last.”

There’s a lump in Ten’s throat now, and he painfully tries to will it away. “I never thought that.” Ten had done away with that kind of thinking long before Doyoung almost made him believe in it again. But he’d hoped. “I wanted it,” Ten admits, and he feels a stupid stray tear make its way down his face. He presses the heels of hands to his eyes to stop the rest of the tears from escaping, but they do anyway. “He made me want it. He stuck around for so long, I just started to think…” He trails off and feels Kunhang’s arms wrap around him.

The sound of the movie plays faintly. The food on the table goes cold. Ten wishes Doyoung were still here.

Ten sleeps on the couch that night after Kunhang leaves, and takes a shower in the morning before he goes to work, if only because he still hears Doyoung’s voice nagging him to. Only a few minutes into the shower he realizes that Doyoung probably doesn’t care whether or not he showers anymore. He finishes up anyways and heads to work.

His apartment is devoid of the rest of Doyoung’s things when Ten returns from his shift, and he wants to scream. Instead, he sets up the biggest blank canvas he has and paints, and paints, and paints, until he’s heaving and dizzy from paint fumes.

He remembers to eat hours later, only because Doyoung left perishables in his fridge and he doesn’t want any of it to go to waste. He makes too much food for one person and refrigerates his leftovers.

The bed still smells faintly like Doyoung’s shampoo. Ten sleeps on the couch again.

The next day, Ten drops off his painting at Kun’s office and leaves before Kun is done with his meeting. Kun calls him a few hours later, asking, “Did you and Doyoung breakup?” in lieu of a greeting.

Ten scoffs into the phone as he makes himself lunch. “What tipped you off?”

Kun hums on the other end. “I haven’t gotten a painting like this from you since before you guys started seeing each other,” he says bluntly. “I have an auction next week, I’ll let you know how it goes.” Ten gets whiplash from the transition from his breakup to business. “I have a feeling about this one.”

“A good feeling or a bad one?”

“A feeling,” Kun vaguely supplies. “How are you doing? Is Kunhang making you eat?”

“Yes,” Ten lies. Doyoung’s voice in the back of his head is the only thing making him eat, though Kunhang helps. “I’m making lunch now. You can come over for your break and share it with me. I made too much,” he offers.

He eats with Kun keeping him company that day. They talk about anything other than Doyoung and how empty the apartment is without him. When Kun leaves, it’s quiet.

Ten sleeps on the couch again.

Kun wires him his money from the auction the next week, and the painting makes him enough to consider buying a new laptop for himself. In fact, he has enough to buy two laptops, and he remembers Doyoung complaining about his current one.

It makes him angry to remember Doyoung for some reason, and he paints until it’s dark outside. He doesn’t sleep that night as he waits for the painting to dry, then he drops it off in front of Kun’s apartment.

He doesn’t eat, either. Doyoung’s voice in his head fumes silently.

Ten visits the coffee shop the day after because he has a shift at the restaurant later in the day, and he needs coffee to keep him on his feet. He gets his usual Americano with an extra shot of espresso, and when his drink is placed on the counter, it’s without Doyoung’s next to it for the first time in three years. Johnny smiles at him again, the gentle smile from over a week ago appearing again. “If you have nowhere to be, my break is in five minutes,” he tells Ten.

Ten nods and retrieves his coffee, sitting at a free table by the window while he waits for Johnny to join him. He’s there in under five minutes with a chocolate chip muffin on a small plate that he places in front of Ten. “On the house.” He grins, and Ten is struck by how handsome he is, and grateful for the sweet smelling muffin in front of him. He takes a chunk of the muffin and tosses it in his mouth, savoring the melty chocolate on his tongue.

“Thanks,” he mumbles around the food, taking another big bite and washing it down with coffee. It helps him feel more awake instantly. “Do you give free muffins to everyone who comes in here?” he asks, sipping on his coffee.

“Only if I’m having a good day,” Johnny jokes, drinking something of his own.

“And what makes today a good day?” Ten asks. He wonders what makes any day good when his days recently are a cycle of painting until he’s dizzy, working grueling hours at the restaurant, and going days without eating because somehow his bed still smells like Doyoung even after he’s washed it and it kills his appetite.

Johnny hums into his mug. “I finished my thesis yesterday. It’s sunny outside. You look marginally better than you did the last time I saw you,” Johnny lists.

“It’s sweet of you to lie, but you don’t have to.” Ten finishes the muffin and gulps down more coffee like he needs it to live. “What was your thesis on?”

“How the composition of photos is integral to the emotion that’s ultimately conveyed by the final product. Very interesting, I know.” Johnny holds the empty plate up, and Donghyuck comes by to take it. “Thanks, Hyuck!” He smiles while Donghyuck rolls his eyes. His smile is so bright, it’s hard for Ten to look at.

He looks down at his straw instead. “Are you a photographer, Johnny?” Ten asks.

“Trying to be,” Johnny says proudly. “We’ll see after I get my grades back, though,” he says, slumping into his chair.

The corners of Ten’s lips quirk up in a smirk. “I guess we’ll have to wait,” he agrees. He takes another sip of his coffee only to find the cup empty. “Has—” He licks his lips. “Has Doyoung been here at all?”

“If I told you the answer, would that make you feel any better?” Johnny asks, looking straight at Ten.

It shocks Ten, and he clenches his jaw. “Does it matter?” he fires back.

Johnny cocks his head to the side. “Yes,” he answers sincerely. “Why wouldn’t it matter?” he replies, furrowing his eyebrows.

Ten can’t answer, at least not in a way that doesn’t sound pathetic. “I just—I want to know if he’s getting out instead of staying in,” he admits, deflating. It hits him then that he’s _worried_ about Doyoung, and the realization makes him want to laugh, especially when any thought of Doyoung in the past week has made him feel ill.

Johnny’s eyes soften. “He’s come in a few times,” Johnny relinquishes. “Always at weird hours, not looking much better than you. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he’s trying to come in when you’re not here to give you space.”

There’s a knowing look in Johnny’s eyes that Ten can’t stand to see, so he gets up and tosses his plastic cup in the trash. “Good thing you don’t know any better, then,” he says darkly. “Thanks for the coffee and the muffin, Johnny.” He leaves a few bills in the tip jar at the register and leaves.

About a month later, Kun holds another auction, a smaller one, and Ten makes even more money off of his painting than he did the last one. He laughs at how his paintings are worth more now when it feels like he’s lost a limb instead of when he felt whole.

Some days, things are fine; he can be functional even if thoughts of Doyoung flow in and out. Other days are the opposite, and he does what he knows best: self-destructs. He gets creative with it, drinking too much at bars and kissing boys that don’t look like Doyoung, not eating for as long as he can take it, locking Kunhang out of his apartment so he can paint without sleeping a wink then going to work shifts at the restaurant.

Today is somewhere in between. He hasn’t showered, but he uses up the rest of the food in his fridge to make himself dinner. He’s delighted to find a pack of beers at the back of the fridge, but he freezes when he sees a post-it on them in Doyoung’s handwriting. He picks it off slowly and the words completely wash away any appetite he had.

_You can only drink these when you’ve finished everything in the fridge. Take care of yourself, Ten._

It’s quiet in Ten’s apartment, but the buzzing in his ears grows louder and louder until he crumples the post-it in his hand and throws it in the direction of the trash.

Then he paints.

Everything is numb. He can’t feel the brush in his hands or smell the paint on his palette. He can’t hear when the brush hits the canvas or his feet on the crumpled newspaper. He paints without seeing what he’s doing, stroke after stroke.

One stroke of black is thicker than he intended. “Fuck,” he mutters to himself, and the next stroke turns out too thin. “ _Fuck_ ,” he says again, louder this time, and he presses the brush harder against the canvas until it’s a chaotic mess of black brushstrokes against his otherwise clean painting.

“Fuck!” he shouts, throwing his palette at the canvas blindly. His vision is blurred with hot tears that run down his face freely and he sobs, loudly, as he sinks to his knees.

 _Traitor,_ he thinks about Doyoung, for making him believe that someone, that _Doyoung,_ was going to stick around and be the last one in a long line of boys who told Ten he was neurotic and inane, for making him believe that maybe Ten could pour himself into a person the way he’s always wanted to but was too afraid to do. For holding Ten’s hand through his episodes and caring for him in a way he’d never experienced, hadn’t even known was possible. For making Ten fall in love with him only for him to leave and nothing to show for it but the birthday gifts and a silver promise ring, abandoned in a drawer. For leaving Ten with an ache in his chest so sharp he doesn’t know how he’s still alive. For loving Ten until the very last second.

Ten clutches his chest like he can’t get breath into his lungs and cries until his throat burns raw. “I love you,” he weeps. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he says around his cries, brokenly, painfully.

He wishes he told Doyoung before he left.

Ten wakes up on the floor of his studio, tension in his back from being curled up into a ball all night. He can feel how puffy his eyes are without looking at them, and his throat is dry. There’s dry paint on his hands and knees, and he feels gross. Exhausted.

He gets up from the ground, joints creaking, and he looks at the canvas in front of him.

It’s a portrait of Doyoung from the shoulders up. His face blooms in different colors from where Ten threw the palette.

Ten doesn’t know how long he spends standing in place, staring at the painting.

He brings the painting to Kun’s office and finds Kun there instead of in a meeting of some sort, and Kun takes one look at him before quickly motioning for Ten to close the door behind him, so Ten does. He balances the painting against the couch, and he sits, letting the couch swallow him up. Kun moves from his desk to the couch, next to Ten, and brings Ten’s head down to rest on his shoulder.

“Your eyes are red,” Kun mentions.

Ten huffs. “I figured. Your receptionist looked at me with so much concern, I thought he was gonna give me a pity BJ on the spot,” he mumbles into Kun’s shoulder.

Kun snorts and puts his hand on Ten’s thigh, rubbing gently. They sit quietly for a few moments before Ten speaks up again. “I love Doyoung,” he declares softly. He waits for Kun to laugh, tell him it’s too late, anything that he deserves to hear.

But Kun only hums and continues rubbing circles into Ten’s thigh. “You do,” he says. Ten’s lip wobbles dangerously, and he bites it until there’s blood on his tongue. “What now?”

Ten blinks. What now?

“I listen to him,” Ten answers.

It starts slow. It starts with Ten trying his damned best to shower every single day, even when he has the day off work, even when he no longer has paint on his fingertips. Kunhang and Kun are godsends, sending him reminders every day to shower and once a week to go grocery shopping until Ten turns it into a routine. It takes time, more time than Ten is willing to admit, but it happens. Off days occur, and Kunhang brings over Thai food, or Kun draws him a bath, and they help Ten get back on his feet again.

He doesn’t paint for several months. Instead of painting, he fills his time with dancing at Kunhang’s studio, and eventually he lands a second job teaching beginner’s dance classes, once he’s built up the stamina for his own choreography again. It feels good to be active, even if his feet are sore, but the way his favorite pupil, Yangyang, looks at him with stars in his eyes makes it worth it.

The coffee shop is still there when Ten is ready to go back, sheepish expression on his face. He orders his usual, that Donghyuck still remembers, and opens his mouth to apologize to Johnny, but Johnny slides him his drink and a chocolate chip muffin before he can say anything.

“It’s on the house,” Johnny winks. Ten smiles widely and tips them extra, enough to make up for the muffin.

Ten doesn’t pick up a paintbrush until a year later, when he feels full after dinner with Kun and Johnny and Kunhang, content in a way he hadn’t known was possible. He mixes his colors carefully and puts his brush to the canvas.

🎨🎨🎨

Ten can’t remember what the fight was about. He can’t remember when it all devolved from flirtatious teasing to something ugly, loud, dark.

He does remember shouting, “If you can’t stand me, why are you still with me?” and storming out of the apartment.

A few hours later, he returns after taking a walk to cool off, and he walks into their bedroom. “Doyoung, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,” he says, defeated and tired, the only thing on his mind the comfort of his boyfriend.

But Doyoung is just finishing up packing an overnight bag, resolve in his eyes layered with tearful sadness. “I won’t stand by and continue to love you while you insist on destroying yourself, Ten. It’s not fair to either of us.” Doyoung’s voice is thick with tears. He slings the bag over his shoulder and approaches Ten slowly, leaving a prolonged kiss on Ten’s cheek, soft. When he pulls away, there are tears on his cheeks that Ten wants to wipe away with his thumb, but he’s frozen in his place.

“Please,” Doyoung whispers, “please take care of yourself.”

He leaves Ten behind with a quiet click of the front door, alone.

🎨🎨🎨

Ten steps away from the canvas once he’s done and looks.

Doyoung looks back at him. There’s a rose in his hair, pink and red and orange and yellow flowing into one another like the sunset he and Doyoung first saw on their first date.

He’s smiling.

There’s a new person making his coffee, Ten notices.

“That’s Renjun,” Donghyuck says. “He goes to art school. He paints.”

When Renjun slides Ten’s drink over to him across the counter, Ten hands him his business card. “If you ever want to get connected for exhibitions,” he mentions, winking. Renjun smiles back happily and pockets the card, getting back to work making more drinks.

Ten walks over to his usual table, but there’s someone sitting there, looking out the window, which is odd. He turns his head and spots Ten, surprise flitting across his expression before he’s grinning, gummy and pink in the cheeks.

Ten blinks. Once, twice.

Then he smiles back, bright, and makes his way to the table. 

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally supposed to have an unhappy ending, but it hurt so bad to write i couldn't pull thru LMAO i rly churned this out in like a few hours bc i just wanted the pain to END....... 
> 
> anyways i hope u liked it!! comments and kudos much appreciated, esp bc this is so different than what i usually write. have a good day~!
> 
> [twitter](https://twitter.com/mochibbh) // [cc](https://curiouscat.me/mochibbh0201)


End file.
